Manchester United are believed to be among those included within an image rights "tax dodging" investigation, a Conservative MP has said.
Charlie Elphicke added fans should be angry that top football clubs and players including England and Manchester United's Wayne Rooney "stand accused of dirtying the beautiful game with a culture of excessive greed and tax dodging".
Jennie Granger, HMRC's head of enforcement and compliance, earlier this month said 43 players and 12 football clubs in British leagues - alongside eight agents - are currently under investigation around the issue of image rights.
Speaking in the Commons, Mr Elphicke said: "HM Revenue and Customs says it's investigating 43 Premier League players and 12 clubs for image rights tax dodging, believed to include Manchester United.
"Would you agree fans are right to be angry that big clubs, including players like England captain Wayne Rooney, stand accused of dirtying the beautiful game with a culture of excessive greed and tax dodging?"
Sports Minister Tracey Crouch replied: "I agree with you that those in football should protect the reputation of football.
"But you are asking me to comment on a matter that HMRC is still investigating, and football players, clubs, managers are treated no differently to others and are expected to adhere to the same principles."
A Manchester United spokesman said later: "The club operates within the rules set by football's governing bodies and HMRC has full visibility of all agreements and payments."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article